Vulture

by Rhiannon Paille

  “I know it won’t change anything, but I need to see it for myself.” She didn’t wait for his answer as she hurried across the village, Krishani on her heels. He didn’t want to tell her he stole from the witches to make it possible, but they weren’t going to leave for awhile, so he had time. The Flames were safe, the Horsemen weren’t killing anyone. One day wouldn’t hurt. They passed the castle steps and Krishani glanced at the orange light coming out of the open doors. Inside, Elwen met with the other Tavesins in the village. He disregarded it and followed Kaliel.

  She was in the small, stuffy cabin. She threw herself on the bed for a minute, giggled, and rolled over so she was facing him. He pressed his side against the doorjamb, watching her with speculation. “How did you do it?” she asked, her eyes shining. She sat, her legs splaying out under her as she gripped the bed sheets in her hands. They hadn’t bothered to make the bed in the morning. Krishani crossed the floor and grabbed the traveling bags he took when he was with Mallorn.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said quietly as he stuffed his cloak into the empty bag. He felt Kaliel’s eyes on him as he slipped one of the tunics and a pair of breeches inside. “Do you want to take your dress with you?” he asked, pointing at it. It was slung over the wicker chair. She glanced at the little box containing the birthstone. Krishani frowned. “You want to take that?”

  Kaliel shook her head. “No, it’s not important.” She took the green dress in her hands, folding it meticulously, and handed it to him. She had a sad look in her eyes. “I wonder if it’s different there, too,” she mumbled, hugging her arms to her chest.

  Krishani pulled the drawstrings together. He gave her a soft look. “I guess we’ll find out. Come on.” He clambered down the stairs and she joined him, jumping off the second step. He cinched the bag across his midsection and walked with purpose, avoiding the castle. They found themselves in the midst of the cabins, walking up rows of dirt roads and tripping over barrels and crates. When they neared the wall Krishani took a left and crept past the guard towers. He pushed the big double doors open and made a crack big enough for them to slip through. Once they were on the other side Kaliel let out a wail.

  “You didn’t tell Elwen, did you?” she whispered. Disgust painted her features. The fields looked devastating. Krishani flinched at the fresh memories of the battle. On the left lay a heap of black bodies turned to ash and soot by funeral pyres. The stench of blood stung the air. Between the rocks jutting out of the field were black birds. They clung to everything dead and fleshy. Krishani neared her.

  “Time works differently here. Elwen won’t know we’re gone until we’re back.” He pulled her down the road in the center of the field. She had to jog to keep up as he broke through the trees. By the time they reached the mound she was huffing and puffing. She took a deep breath as he traced the outline of the purple mountains, back-dropped by the setting sun.

  “What’s out there?” She pointed.

  Krishani grimaced; there were a lot of bad things out there. He glanced sideways at her. “I found Tiki in those mountains.”

  Kaliel brushed her hands along her dress and rubbed her shoulders like she was cold. “I remember Tiki.”

  Krishani gave her a knowing nod and descended the mound, turning into the thicker forests. He tried to take the same route Mallorn took during his first day on Terra but it proved harder to navigate than Mallorn had made it seem. Eventually he stopped, ferns littering the ground. Night crept across the horizon. He thought about calling the boat and the rule about the gargoyles. They needed to do it before dawn, or it would be impossible to go home. He turned in circles as Kaliel glanced at him furtively, crossing her arms.

  “Which way are we supposed to go?”

  Krishani sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking about the three paths to the Great Oak, the only other time he was ever lost in a forest. “We need to get to the shores. They were in the same direction as the sunset, but …” He meant to say it was too dark and shook his head. He went to set off in any direction when Kaliel stepped in front of him and lifted a hand to his cheek. She closed her eyes and, even though her brow creased and she hummed incoherently, she seemed pleased when she opened her eyes, a faint violet hue streaking through her irises.

  “Follow me.” She wended through the remainder of trees. Krishani heard it moments later–rushing water. They neared the banks. Krishani smiled wide and pulled her into a hug, his cheek brushing against the flower in her hair.

  “Gott’s River,” he said, gesturing to the water. Kaliel stared at its whorls and tufts of white. Krishani stepped into the river, water circling his shins. He took her hand, preparing to lead her safely across when she laughed.

  “I’m not afraid of water, Krishani. I’m just worried about getting my dress wet.”

  Krishani shot her a wicked grin. “I don’t mind if you strip naked, but it’s really not that deep.”

  Kaliel turned so red that even her ears were on fire and she scoffed, bunching up her skirts in her hands. “I don’t need your help crossing.” She feigned a frown. Krishani dropped his hand and set out before her, making sure there weren’t any unexpected depths to the river. The water never reached past his knees and for Kaliel it never went higher than her thighs. She dropped her dress before reaching the banks, water splattering the bottom of it as she tottered on the edge, almost losing her balance. Krishani pivoted and caught her, shooting her another mocking smile.

  “Careful, you don’t want to fall prey to the fish.” He grinned as he put her on the firm ground.

  She brushed herself off and gave him a playful glare. “If you paid any attention to Istar we could have levitated over the river.”

  Krishani narrowed his eyes. She didn’t know Istar was an enemy now. “Come on, it’s not much further.” He ignored her, stalking towards the shore. They didn’t talk much as they wound through trees, crested shallow hills and eventually found the exact spot the boat docked when Krishani arrived with Mallorn and Pux.

  Kaliel fixed him with a look that said she was anxious to see what he would do. He pulled the seashell out of his pocket and fit the two pieces together, holding them in his left hand as he raised his arms to the sky and chanted under his breath. His senses unfurled, roiling like the clouds hanging lazily over the sea, gray lines across the sky. It wasn’t long before the mists surrounded the shores and shrouded them in a thick, white smoke. Krishani watched Kaliel out of the corner of his eye as she brushed herself off, her face full of wonder. He didn’t know how to feel. She was so disappointed with everything Terra had to offer and so bent on going home. He couldn’t deny her the things she wanted. Whatever the Ferryman had to do, it could wait. Despite exile he missed the simple things about Avristar that made Terra seem destitute in comparison: spring waters, warm breezes, apple trees, the waterfall. The true wonder on Avristar wasn’t its landscape. It was her, the girl he would die for, the girl who had died for him. He was afraid of going there because of all the things that had happened that he couldn’t take back. He feared the stains of destruction wouldn’t wash away.

  Water rumbled as the boat rose out of it, a giant lady carved in stone glaring at them with a gargoyle perched at the bow. Krishani helped Kaliel down the hill, and this time she didn’t make a fuss about getting wet. She sloshed in the knee deep water, climbing into the boat. Krishani followed, nudging the gargoyle before sitting beside her. The gargoyle pushed away from the rocks and the boat drifted seamlessly into the ocean.

  Kaliel stared at him intently, her knees bouncing, teeth chattering, nerves popping. She watched the mists as they drifted by, seeming distrait. Krishani took her hands in his.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked gently. He wanted to know if she was thinking the same things he was, that facing their past wouldn’t be as easy as she made it seem.

  “I wasn’t old enough to know the incantation,” she admitted, her voice low.

  It wasn’t the answer Krishani expected. He stood, pulling Kaliel
with him, cradling her in his arms. Water tossed the boat tumultuously as he leaned in and began whispering the incantation into her ear in the ancient Avristar tongue. “I call upon the Gatekeeper, open the arms of Avristar. I call upon the Gatekeeper, open the arms of Avristar. I call upon the Gatekeeper, Child of Avristar.”

  She pressed her forehead to his shoulder, and they stood like that for a long time. “Is that it?” she asked. Krishani nodded.

  “But we aren’t Children of Avristar anymore.” There was melancholy in her tone as the mists began to clear. The boat slid through the glassy waters unerringly, the bow hitting the shore. It was near dawn, a faint haze of morning taking over the sky. Krishani stepped off the boat and Kaliel followed, tripping over herself as she hit the soft deep green grass. Krishani gripped her elbow and helped her to her feet as the gargoyle scampered to the cave. Kaliel glanced at the lake, the familiar sky of their childhood above them. Krishani held her against him. “Welcome home,” he whispered.

  * * *

  13 - Avristar

  Kaliel swayed in Krishani’s arms, closing her eyes and breathing in the saccharine scent of the land. Joy consumed her, explored the far reaches of her limbs. She hadn’t felt truly alive until this moment. She was a soul in a shell but she wasn’t whole. Strips of dawn light shot into the sky, covering them in a faint yellowish tinge. Rays of sun tickled her senses as her eyelids fought to shut. She forced them open, unable to deny herself the pleasure of watching the sunrise. She turned in Krishani’s arms and tilted her head to his. He had the same lazy smile on his face though it was tainted with worry. He relaxed his grip and turned to the trees.

  It was hard not to notice the skeletons of rotted trees. They had black branches and whitish colored bark splotched with shades of gray. Krishani grabbed Kaliel to steady her as she almost fell on her knees. There was no denying what this was. Krishani pulled her against him, his arm around her shoulders.

  “Try not to look at it.”

  Kaliel let out a sigh and let him pull her around the path of Crestaos’s unnatural destruction. She may have been free of him but the intense fear that flooded her senses at the thought of him was enough to make her sick.

  “He always knew where I was,” she said as Krishani led her through a make-shift path. She thought about his upbringing with the Brotherhood of Amersil, the way they forged the forest paths. He was still familiar with the ways of the land, the skills he learned from the Brothers. She shrugged his arm off her shoulders and hugged her arms to her chest. It was dimmer under the cover of the tall spruce, reds, and elder trees, but Krishani found a way around them, avoiding nettles and pools of mud.

  She tripped over something and almost stumbled onto her knees but caught herself and stood upright. Krishani glanced at her, concerned, and shook his head. “You’re still clumsy.”

  She crossed her arms but didn’t stop. “Where are we going?”

  Krishani pushed branches out of his way and looked at her over his shoulder. “Mallorn’s cabin.”

  She shuffled her feet along the ground, pools of sadness festering in her gut. She didn’t want to see the cabin, the last place she had been before the Village of the Shee, before awakening Avred. She hiccupped and went to say something but Krishani stopped. He looked at the land with hesitation. She caught up and put her hands on his shoulders, peering around him at the trail leading through the trees. A thick ashen mark streaked through the land, marring it forever. Krishani wrapped his fingers around her hand.

  “He didn’t take you,” he murmured.

  “What about the destruction he left behind?” She moved ahead, attempting to step on the ash itself. Her foot hovered, but Krishani pulled her back.

  “We need to go around it.”

  “Why?” She didn’t want to avoid what Crestaos had caused; she wanted to overcome it. Facing it was the only way to do that.

  Krishani hung his head. “I made that mistake once, and it made me sick.” He stepped away, not letting her out of the iron grip and led her beside the unnatural trail. They tarried alongside it for a long time before the mound and the creek came into view, the stripe of marred land running across the hill.

  Kaliel sunk to her knees at the stream. She didn’t know what to think or what to say. The cabin was untouched, cellar doors wide open, creek babbling away. She went to her feet, ready to race across the grass and open the barn doors. She missed Mallorn’s horses. Krishani wasn’t fast enough this time. She heard him shout a warning behind her as she broke into a sprint and reached the gate. She noticed the stripe of decay streaked along the left side of the barn as she unclasped the bar and dropped it, letting the doors pull open almost on their own.

  It was empty.

  Krishani caught up, following her gaze. He let out a sigh of relief and Kaliel frowned. What happened to the horses? None of it felt real to her, nothing was the same as she left it. Krishani’s expression created a muddle of knots in her stomach, but she forced herself to look at him.

  “Why aren’t they here?” She fixed him with a hard stare. He had the answers, and acting taciturn only made her grief deeper.

  “There are so many things you don’t understand,” he muttered. Kaliel crossed her arms and waited for an answer. She wanted to collapse and not think about these things anymore, but it was impossible not to. She had to know the truth about what happened after she awakened Avred. Krishani stared at her.

  “He killed the horses.” There wasn’t any emotion behind his voice, nothing to console her.

  Kaliel felt the hole in her heart growing larger, but she didn’t faint. She pushed past Krishani and crossed the creek, being careful not to fall in. He followed her as she crested the mound and rounded it, stopping at the front door. She tried the knob and pushed the door open. The cabin was exactly the way she remembered it–a kitchen to the left, a sitting room in front of her, two big wooden chairs, a stump for tea, a fireplace behind the chairs, and her tiny room off to the right. It was hard to be there with the tattered manuscripts lying all over the ledges, end tables, book-shelves, and floor. There was one knocked over on its side, slumped like it had been open but left in a hurry. She went to pick it up as Krishani shuffled inside the house, wiping his brow with the sleeve of his cloak.

  “I’m sorry. I thought you’d be happy to come here.” He crossed the floor and dropped into the wooden chair. He leaned forward, his gaze digging into her.

  Kaliel picked up the manuscript and righted it, smoothing out the bent edges of paper. She put it on the end table thoughtfully, reading the titles of the stacks of scripts. Her shoulders drooped and she felt it like a tidal wave. They lost so much. Mallorn was gone and Avristar wasn’t the same. Krishani sat back and she crawled into his lap, nestling herself in his strong arms. Sobs shook her fragile frame as he stroked her back.

  Even though she did everything she could to protect and preserve them, Avristar was still broken. The land itself had a grim tone of animosity, like every tree stood to guard the kinfolk. They were no longer there to guide and help them with their never-ending wisdom. She fought for air at the thought and succumbed to the sadness that had been inside her since she appeared on the battlefield, pressed up against a boy as cold and unfeeling as the land she woke up on.

  Krishani gently pulled the locks of black hair away from her ears and face, letting curls tumble down her back as he ran his fingers through it. She felt the gesture but she couldn’t respond to it. He was only trying to help; he saw all of this before.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and Kaliel realized that he had said that five times already. She kept her cheek pressed against his chest and let out a sigh, trying to stop the tears.

  “How can I be happy when this is all my fault?”

  “Don’t think about it,” Krishani said.

  “I miss everything being the way it used to be.” She pressed her hands to her heart unable to quell the sensation of it breaking in half. Another wave of tears escaped her eyes and she squeezed them
shut, trying to find solace.

  “You can’t change the past,” he mumbled.

  Kaliel slumped and took a deep breath. “Were you there when Mallorn died? Did you see it?” She remembered his frequent dreams of death and the way he was racked with so much grief even during their good times together. Istar was a harsh mentor, and Krishani was not only a precocious apprentice but a disappointing one as well.

  Krishani tensed and untangled his fingers from her hair. She sensed him remembering something and pressed her palm to his chest. “Tell me.” She already heard a version of the story from Pux, but this was different. Krishani was the Ferryman; the only thing she knew for sure was that they dealt with death.

  He let out a long breath. “I was there. He was ready to die, and he asked me to help.”

  “Who killed him?”

  Krishani grunted in response and shifted his weight, trying to get comfortable. Kaliel shifted too, then sunk into him again. She wasn’t letting the question go. She wanted to know everything, but both Pux and Krishani were willing to tell her so little. She couldn’t imagine what could be so bad about not losing their lives.

  “The Daed killed him. They were controlling the Flames.” His tone was curt, abrupt.

  Kaliel sighed. So it wasn’t any different than what Pux had said. Mallorn died at the hands of a Flame. By association, it was her fault. If she hadn’t awakened the night Krishani made love to her, she wouldn’t have revealed her location and she might still be safe. “Why did you go to Terra?”

  “I already told you,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “No, I mean why didn’t you hide in Nandaro?”

  Krishani sighed. “Because you told me to go to the Lands of Men.”

  Kaliel frowned, the memory evading her. “I don’t remember.”

  “You said it before you went to awaken Avred.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to recall the conversation. Bits and pieces came back to her: Mallorn angry, Crestaos coming for her, awakening Avred, Krishani unable to come with her. It was clear but the exact words weren’t fresh in her mind. She pushed her head into his shoulder and her lips met his collar bone unintentionally. Her limbs were heavy, and she was all out of tears to cry. All she wanted was sleep. She yawned and pushed herself up, meeting Krishani’s eyes before she looked at the bedroom. It had been forever since she’d slept in that cot. She gingerly pushed herself off him and stretched her arms out. He wasn’t looking at her; he was fiddling with the sleeve of his cloak.